Right.
If you read a history of railroad development, you will find this was an issue as early as the 1820s. Incidentally, Calhoun was raising a rukus in the South Carolina Legislature about tarrifs at about the same time. The entire situation, the degree of emnity which would pit the South and North against each other, did not develop overnight, it took decades to build.
As for Hicks, >spit!<, Maryland's traitorous governor was the one who told the State Militia to place their arms in the armory and wait for the call. He not only never issued the call, he had the arms confiscated, which was why there were street riots and what might be considered guerilla actions instead of militia action to repulse the invaders.
My family was in MD in the 1600s, and yes, my rembrance of MD history is a mite 'selective'--somee of it was handed down by sources not in the Union history books.
I would remind you that the MD Legislature could seceede even without Hicks' signature, had they been allowed to vote. The State Legislature was not going to seceede until Virginia did, and by your own timeline, Virginia was still voting on secession 3 months later than the MD vote you cite.
By then, the Legislature was under house arrest.
As for "invasions" of West(ern) Virginia, it wasn't--it was all just Virginia at the time. What were the Union Forces doing there, if not an invasion?
Pennsylvania regulars skirmishing with Confederate (Maryland confederates?) at Point of Rocks (MD) at the fall line of the Potomac? What were the PA soldiers doing in Maryland? (Hint--they invaded!)
Skirmishes do not necessarily indicate that one side or the other invaded anywhere, but if you will recall, "border" states were, to at least a significant portion of their populace, "occupied". Entire regiments of their citizenry fought for the South. When the locals engaged in defending their farms and homes against Northern Regiments (especially from another State), I would not call that 'southern' aggression, but self-defense.
Certainly, it pales in comparison to the rampant destruction the Union Forces did in the Shenandoah Valley and to Tennessee and points East on the march to Georgia.
You misread the timeline. Go look again.
Now, suppose Marylanders had been allowed to vote on secession, as were, for example, Virginians -- how would Maryland have voted?
We don't know, of course. But here's what we do know for certain:
Roughly 25,000 Marylanders served in the Confederate Army.
About 60,000 served in the Union Army.
That sounds to me like Marylanders favored the Union more than two to one.
Another indication is that Maryland's slave population was about 25%, and that seems to be right on the border of secession -- states with more than 25% seceded, states with fewer than 25% slaves stayed in the Union.
Smokin' Joe: "As for "invasions" of West(ern) Virginia, it wasn't--it was all just Virginia at the time. What were the Union Forces doing there, if not an invasion?"
The South never deferred to legal niceties when it came to such matters as seizing Union forts, armories, customs houses and ships before a state had officially declared its secession.
Well, in less than a month from Virginia's secession on April 17, West Virginians were meeting to secede from Virginia.
So I say West Virginia was then a Union state, regardless of the "legal niceties". ;-)
Again the point is: the South cared not a whit for "legal niceties" -- whether a state had officially seceded, or not seceded, or declared itself "neutral," didn't matter.
The South sent it's armies where-ever and whenever it felt the need and had the ability.
For example, Confederate raids into West Virginia continued even after it officially became a state.
So, as I've said before, on-balance the war in 1861 was much more a War of Southern Aggression against the Union than Union aggression against the South.
That's the part our defenders of the Southern Cause wish so strongly to forget.